As defined within ETSI TR 102 216 V3.0.0 (September 2003), UICC which is neither an abbreviation nor an acronym, designates a smart card that conforms to the specifications written and maintained by the ETSI Smart Card Platform project.
Further to its conventional telephone function, a mobile phone may be used for exchanging information with a contactless device by using a contactless communication protocol. This permits the exchange of information between the contactless device and elements located within the mobile phone. Plenty of applications are thus possible, such as, mobile ticketing in public transport (the mobile phone acts as a ticket) or mobile payment (the mobile phone acts as a debit/credit payment card).
Near Field Communication or NFC is a short range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables such exchange of data between two contactless devices over a short distance, for example, 10 centimeters. NFC is an open platform technology standardized in ISO/IEC 18092 and ISO/IEC 21481, but incorporates a variety of pre-existing standards including ISO/IEC 14443 protocol type A and type B.
Mobile phone manufacturers are interested in connecting two different auxiliary elements to NFC chips. As a matter of fact, having two separate auxiliary elements allows the clear separation of applications coming from different issuers (banks, transport operators, network operators . . . ).
At present, the mobile phone user may activate either the UICC or the other embedded secure element before performing a RF transaction. Thus, the RF terminal or RF reader is only able to see the RF applications from one auxiliary element, but not from both auxiliary elements at the same time, i.e. in the same RF session. So, the RF terminal has only limited capabilities to select the right RF application, as the user has to make a pre-selection before.